Presenting historical images that celebrate the Golden Age of Burlesque and Striptease..
Bubbles Darlene appears on the cover of the Winter ‘56 issue of ‘MR. Annual’ magazine..
More pics of Bubbles can be found here..
Pepper Powell shows off her hosiery and heels..
An image from one of Irving Klaw’s fetish series sets..
Kalantan shows off a few of her moves..
Rita Grable shows off her pearls..
(via underneaththedress)
Noel Toy aka. “The Chinese Sally Rand”.. (1918-2003)
Nejla Ates aka. “The Exquisite Turkish Delight”..
Cass Franklin is listed as Nejla’s “personal manager”.. But he was also a singer at the ‘LATIN QUARTER’, and an integral part of Lou Walters’ management team; handling all of the contracts for performing talent. This would seem a direct conflict of interest, to most observers..
A Turkish newspaper reported that he was also a man with a gambling problem. And that he’d been siphoning off enormous sums of money from the nightclub’s accounts, to pay off these personal debts.. When the thefts were discovered in June of ‘59, Franklin commited suicide. He was 47 years old..
Sally Lane appears on the back cover of an old issue of ‘Cavalcade Of Burlesque’..
Marsha Strand aka. “The Leopard Girl”..
She was born in 1930 in the suburbs of Grand Rapids, Michigan.. Marsha studied both Dance and Commercial Art, while in high school. Shortly after graduating, she found work as a chorus girl with a travelling Burlesque show.. Eventually, she began featuring and became a mainstay at Chicago-area nightclubs.. Her celebrated “Cat Dances” were (purportedly) inspired by a voodoo dance she’d once seen, while vacationing in Haiti!
